Please Help Me Decide Where To Start

Adams,Douglas
Adams,Robert
Ahern, Jerry
Aldiss,Brian
Alexander,Lloyd
Allston,Aaron
Anderson,Kevin J.
Anderson,Poul
Anthony,Piers
Anvil,Chris
Applegate,K.A.
Armstrong,Kelly
Arthur,Keri
Asaro,Cathrine
Asimov,Isaac
Asprin,Robert
Attanasio,A.A.

Bain,Darrell
Banks,Iain
Bardsley,Michele
Barker,Clive
Barnes,Arthur K.
Baum,L.Frank
Baxter,Stephen
Beagle,Peter S.
Bear,Greg
Benford,Gregory
Berg,Carol
Bester,Alfred
Betancuort,John Gregory
Bishop,Anne
Blake,Anita
Bova,Ben
Bradbury,Ray
Bradley,Marion Zimmer
Brennan,Marie
Briggs,Patricia
Brin,David
Brockmann,Suzanne
Brooks,Terry
Brown,Mary
Brunner,John
Brust,Steven
Bujold,Lois McMaster
Bull,Emma
Bunch,Chris
Burroughs,Edgar Rice
Busby,S.M.
Butcher,Jim
Butler,Octavia

Cadigan,Pat
Caidin,Martin
Caine,Rachel
Callander,Don
Canavan,Trudi
Card,Orson Scott
Carey,Jacqueline
Carver,Jeffrey
Castaneda,Carlos
Chalker,Jack I.
Cherryh,C.J.
Chester,Deborah
Christopher,John
Clarke,Arthur C.
Clement,Hal
Cook,Glen
Cook,Rick
Cooper,Louise
Cooper,Susan
Crichton,Michael

Dahl,Roland
Daley,Brian
Dalmas,John
Darren Shan
Davidson,Mary Janice
DeCamp,I.Sprague
DeChancie,John
Deitz,Tom
DelRey,Lester
Delany,Samuel
DeLint,Charles
Dick,Philip K.
Dickson,Gordon
Dietz,William C.
Donaldson,Stephen R.
Douglas,L.Warren
Douglass,Sara
Doyle&McDonald
Drake,David
Duane,Diane
Duncan,Dave

Edding,David
Elliot,Kate
Ellison,Harlan
Elrod,P.N.

Fallon,Jennifer
Farland,David
Farmer,Phillip Jose
Feehan,Christine
Feintuch,David
Feist,Raymond E.
Flewelling,Lynn
Flint,Eric
Flint,Kenneth
Foley,Gaelen
Forstchen,Wiliam
Forsyth, Kate
Forward,Robert
Foster,Alan Dean
Frankowski,Leo
Friedman,C.S.
Freisner,Esther
Furey,Maggie

Gabaldon,Diana
Gaiman,Neil
Gardner,Craig Shaw
Garland,Mark
Gear,W.Michael
Gemmell,David
Gentle,Mary
Gerrold,David
Gibson,William
Goodkin,Terry
Green,Sharon
Green,Simon
Greenberg,Martin H.

Haldeman,Jack C.
Haldeman Joe
Hambly,Barbara
Hamilton,Laurell K.
Hamilton,Peter F.
Hardy,Lyndon
Harper,Tara K.
Harris,Charlaine
Harrison,Harry
Harrison,Kim
Hawke,Simon
Haydon,Elizabeth
Heinlein,Robert A.
Hendee,J.C.&Barb.
Herbert,Frank
Hobb,Robin
Hodgell,P.C.
Hogan,James P.
Howard,Robert E.
Hubbard, L.Ron

Ing,Dean

Jacques,Brian
Jones,D.F.
Jones,Diana Wynne
Jones,J.V.
Jordan,Robert

Kay, Guy Gavriel
Kearney, Paul
Kenyon,Sherrilyn
Kerr,Katherine
Keyes,J.Gregory
Knight,Angela
Knight,E.F.
Koontz,Dean
Kurtz,Kathrine
Kuttner,Henry

Lackey,Mercedes
Laumer,Keith
Lawhead,Stephen
Lazarevich,Alexander
Lee&Miller
Lee,Tanith
LeGuin,Ursula K.
Leiber,Fritz
Leinster,Murray
Lem,Stanislaw
L'Engle,Madeline
Lindskold,Jane
Lisle,Holly
Long,Duncan
Longyear,Barry
Lowecraft,H.P.
Lumley,Brian
Lustbader,Eric Van

MacAvoy,R.A.
Martin,George R.R.
May,Julian
McCaffrey,Anne
McDevitt,Jack
McIntyre,Vonda
McKillip,Patricia A.
McKinley,Robin
Miller,Walter M.
Modesitt,L.E.
Moon,Elizabeth
Moorcock,Michael
Murphy,C.E.

Neale,Donald
Niles, Douglas
Niven,Larry
Norman,John
Norton,Andre
Novak, Kate

Paolini,Christopher
Paterson,Derek
Perry,S.D.
Pierce, Tamora
Pike,Christopher
Piper,H.Beam
Pohl,Frederik
Pollotta,Nick
Pournelle,Jerry
Powers,Tim
Pratchett,Terry
Prater,Ian
Pullman, Philip

Rawn, Melanie
Reichert,Mickey Zucker
Resnick,Laura
Resnick,Mike
Rice,Anne
Ringo,John
Robb,J.D.
Roberson, Jennifer
Roberts, John Maddox
Robinson,Kim Stanley
Robinson,Spider
Rowley,Christopher
Rowling,J.K.
Russell,Sean

Saberhagen,Fred
Sage,Angie
Saintcrow,Lillith
Salvatore,R.A.
Saundby,Kate
Sawyer,Robert J.
Scarborough,Elizabeth Anne
Schmidt,Dennis
Schmitz,James
Scott,Martin
Sellars,M.R.
Shatner,Williams
Sheffield,Charles
Shinn,Sharon
Silverberg,Robert
Simak,Clifford D.
Simmons,Dan
Simmons,William Mark
Smeds,Dave
Smith,E.E.Doc.
Smith,Wilbur
Snicket,Lemony
Spencer,Wen
Stableford,Brian
Stackpole,Michael
Stasheff,Christopher
Steakley,John
Stephenson,Neal
Sterling,Bruce
Stirling,S.M.
Stross, Charles
Stroud,Jonathan
Sturgeon,Theodore

Tepper,Sherri
Tilley,Patrick
Tolkien,J.R.R.
Troop,Alan
Turtledove,Harry

VanVogot,A.E.
Vance,Jack
Varley,John
Verne,Jules
Vinge,Joan D.
Vinge,Vernor

Watt-Evans,Lawrence
Weber,David
Weis,Margaret & Hickman
Wells,H.G.
Wentworth,K.D.
West,Michelle
White,Steve
Whyte,Jack
Wilbur,Smith
Wilhelm,Kate
Wilks,Eileen
Williams,Tad
Williamson,Michael Z.
Wilson,Colin
Wingrove,David
Wolfe,Gene
Wrede,Patricia C.
Wurts,Janny

Yarbro,Chelsea Quinn
Yolen,Jane

Zahn,Timothy
Zelazny,Roger

Star Trek

Star Wars

Magic - The Gathering

Adams,Douglas
Pratchett,Terry
Rowling,J.K.
Star Trek
Star Wars
Magic - The Gathering
Don't go there.

>>2
True, true.

>>3
There's nothing wrong with Douglas, Pratchett, or Niven.

>>4
Douglas is horrendously mediocre, and Pratchett isn't even remotely as good as people make him to be, if only because his only genre was parody, and parody is inherently inferior even if your jokes are really good.

Don't read shitty modern authors, go for the classics.

>>5
Douglas was fine and amusing, as is Pratchett.

Start with one of these:

Douglas Adams
Isaac Asimov
Arthur C. Clarke
Neil Gaiman
H.P. Lovecraft
Terry Pratchett
Neal Stephenson
Jules Verne

>>2
>>5
Ignore the Pratchett trolls that have sprung up lately.

>>7
Okay and amusing, sure, but there certainly is a lot of authors that are much, much better then them.

Parody is a non-genre, parody literature is a non-literature. At least Pratchett could write, though, while Douglas' popularity is a complete mystery indeed: his first novel was mediocre, second only halfway good, third and fourth severely mediocre and badly written, and the last one just outright bad. Like, really-really bad.

See, I like Pratchett as a person, but his comedy is only for easily amused geek types. Same goes for Douglas Adams. Also, thanks to their "cult following", the jokes are really old and played out now. Makes me sick every time somebody quotes one.

As for Rowling... I don't even think I have to explain this. But if you really want to read through several thousand pages of Snape-kills-Dumbledore children's adventure books, sure, why not.

>>6
Troll or moron. Either way, ignore him, he likesloves the dick.

>>9
He's only broadly parodic. Mostly his books are good stories with an amusing bent. Your comments apply to Spaceballs, not Pratchett.

>>9
So according to you works by Jonathan Swift, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, and Kurt Vonnegut are non-literature because they're satirists like Pratchett

>>13
Satire is a great genre, but Pratchett is more of a parodist than a satirist, and that's my main beef with him.

http://darktraveller.blogspot.com/

oh and kevin j anderson for sure!!!

sci-fi rocks!

>>11
There are thousands of years of great works to choose from, what is so special about our time that you read stuff from the last 5 or 10 years? Chances are you are reading trash that will not stand the test of time.

>>17
What makes those great works great? Do you honestly believe anybody would still pick most of them if they didn't have any great names attached? It's more pretentiousness than anything else.

And I can already predict that your only answer will be to accuse me of being ignorant, thereby proving my point.

>>18
Another Anon here.
No, silly, he's just saying that chances are much higher. THere are only so much good books published each year, and thus there certainly is a higher chance of finding one written in the last 1000 years than one written in the last 10 years, chances exactly being 100 to 1 respectively.

>>19
I don't think it's that simple. Education was a pretty elitist thing in the past and there were obviously less capable authors, so there was a much smaller pool of works to chose from. Also, the process of deciding what constitutes a "great work" is all but transparent. It basically means that somebody in the past with the required power decided so and then the material was used in teaching etc. and passed down the generations. A lot of the stuff is inaccessible or boring to people today who aren't specifically interested in history or the study of literature.

Also, for non-fiction works, you surely won't deny that many old books simply have become outdated and ridiculous. And for fictional works, that there are a lot of themes in modern literature that people back then couldn't even have dreamed about because they were beyond their imagination.

Not to mention that the further you go back, the more restricted people were in what they were even allowed to write about by oppressive governments and religions.

>>17
How could an author from thousands of years ago predict the present like someone writing now?

>>20
>A lot of the stuff is inaccessible or boring to people today who aren't specifically interested in history or the study of literature.
Underage victim of shitty modern schooling / illiterate retard dedected. Which are you? Do you find it hard to appreciate the same stuff as all those dull people in school, even if it actually is some of the best stuff in art? Or are you just stupid enough to believe that people have somehow become more intelligent over the years?

Now, replying to your actual post, I say, widespread literacy surely increases the number of bad writers; but good authors were always able to find ways to pass on their stories, you know. Because good authors, like, spent all their live on it, just like they do now. One might even argue that modern world might have an incredibly diminutive chance of seeing a good author, if only because it's too hard to look through all the bad books to find the good ones.

>>22
One might even argue that modern world might have an incredibly diminutive chance of seeing a good author, if only because it's too hard to look through all the bad books to find the good ones.
Perhaps, if one had never heard of the Internet.

>>22
Underage victim of shitty modern schooling / illiterate retard dedected.
Thanks for proving the point made earlier, you intelligence evacuated pipsqueak. No, you don't need to really argue or something. Just stick to that weak insult and repeat it over a few paragraphs, it illustrates what an enlightened reader you are. Don't like x? Well, you must've not paid attention in school, because they clearly told you what to like there. Why should you appreciate x more than anything else? Well, because it's a masterpiece, everybody knows that! No, I can't explain it either! I just know I'm cool because I share the tastes of some fat old men with impressive sounding titles and they're the ones who set the standards.

It's really telling how fans of classic literature tend to rarely talk about the literature itself. And when they do, it's mostly "Well, that was so deep right" ... "Yeah totally" ... "[...]" ... "[...]"

I think you might just be one of those.

Now, replying to your actual post, I say, widespread literacy surely increases the number of bad writers
As well as good ones. And do you think everybody who was taught to read and write in the past was actually talented instead of just privileged?

Because good authors, like, spent all their live on it, just like they do now.
Rrrriight... still makes you wonder why most of them were privileged from birth in the past.

One might even argue that modern world might have an incredibly diminutive chance of seeing a good author if only because it's too hard to look through all the bad books to find the good ones.
If our means of sharing information were still stuck in Shakespeare's times, I would've maybe agreed. But since they aren't, this is kind of weak. Very.

>>24
intelligence evacuated pipsqueak
When you're trying to dazzle someone with your brainpower, it's best to avoid writing nonsense.

>>25
But what if you're not trying?

>>26
That depends on the image you're trying to project: if it's "buffoon", more power to you.

>>25
>>27
Well, since your posts are basically slightly more elaborate versions of "NO U", you're hardly one to talk.

Somebody who only reads newspapers and at best books of contemporary authors looks to me like an extremely near-sighted person who scorns eyeglasses. He is completely dependent on the prejudices and fashions of his times, since he never gets to see or hear anything else. And what a person thinks on his own without being stimulated by the thoughts and experiences of other people is even in the best case rather paltry and monotonous.
There are only a few enlightened people with a lucid mind and style and with good taste within a century. What has been preserved of their work belongs among the most precious possessions of mankind. We owe it to a few writers of antiquity (Plato, Aristotle, etc.) that the people in the Middle Ages could slowly extricate themselves from the superstitions and ignorance that had darkened life for more than half a millennium. Nothing is more needed to overcome the modernist's snobbishness. (Albert Einstein, 1954)

>>29
Somebody who only reads newspapers and at best books of contemporary authors
I thought we were talking about a fag who only reads classic literature and apparently believes nobody has had an original thought for a century or so?

I know, it sucks when your quotes don't fit and you have to argue yourself instead of copy pasting, but at least put in some effort.

We are talking about fags who only read the best books of contemporary authors.

>>31
Like >>6 amirite.

Pratchett fans sure are bitchy.

>>28
Not at all. I am an impartial observer, descended into this thread to give advice.

>Adams,Douglas
Right there. Anything after that is cool, but you gotta start with the best.

>>30
If the book is on the "New York Times" Best-Seller list, it's generally not worth reading. Generally. It's not a rule, but it's generally true.

And by worth, I mean content. It can be "worth" reading, if you're only seeking pleasure or a conversation point for when you go socializing (lol sure, this is 4chan), but I doubt you'll be enlightened at all by reading it.

Good writing is not writing that generally sells, because it's writing that makes people think. And people don't like to think.

Start with the basics. Aristotle, Plato – Plato's apology is a great place to start, I think. Then, try something foreign, like the Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching), something Germanic (Faust), then something from the Enlightenment period (as other anonymous have suggested, Douglas), then, something from an American, personally, I'd suggest Thoreau (Walden), but that may be a little dull for you.

Then, go back to Europe. 1984 is something I enjoy, but in the early 20th, there's so much to choose from, I can't even really give a recommendation.

In the end though, it's up to you. Just as long as you stay away from Butch, Pratchett, Rowling, or any modern fantasy/sci-fi writing, you should come out OK.

I'm not saying that because I hate sci-fi/fantasy (I just finished Codex Alera the other day...), but it's simply because it's mind-numbing and often full of itself.

>>36
Well, NYT list certainly are full of shit, but so are you, my friend. Aristotle and Plato? "Douglas as other anonymous suggested" from the Enlightenment period?.. Are you okay? I think not. I think that you are a pretencious underage faggot, that's what I think. BUSTA WOFL.

David Eddings. One of the first series of books I ever read and I still read them when Im bored with all my other books. The first book, Pawn of Prophecy, starts out a little slow but once they get going they are really good books.

Also, Margret Weis and Tracy Hickman.. The DragonLance series are hard sometimes to organize and figure which happened where and when you should read it but they are great books. Really well written and another series I still go back and read (in fact I just re-started it yesterday).

Robert Jordan is pretty good, except hes dead now and didnt finish his series.. Theyre kind of long and really descriptive but I love that, so dont read them if you dont like it.. But good books

You don't have any Wodehouse.  What the fuck is wrong with you?

Also, Gene Wolfe would be a good read.

>>36
Tee hee. I've met people like you in person. They're funny. They usually expect you to go into dummy mode and just nod when they babble about classic literature and how insightful and enlightening this and that is. But when you instead try to question them about it, they'll quickly descend into "uhh" and "uhhmmm" and give the impression that the only insight those books gave them is that they can impress people who are even dumber than them with their titles.

>>38
Reading WoT is like climbing a mountain and having it vanish when you're 2/3 of the way up.

>>41
To me, it felt like climbing a wall of dicks most of the time.

>>42
Well yeah, but I think reading it now that Robert Jordan is dead would be more like I described.

Ellison,Harlan

Do NOT do Anita Blake's books.  They start off decent but then she puts the mystery away for BDSM and lycanthropic sex.

Should we also help you to read?

Read Robert Rankin and Robert Asprin everything they wrote is gold.